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Date: 6/1/2021
WESTHAMPTON/SOUTHAMPTON – The Hampshire Regional school committees met for a joint session on May 26 to discuss a proposed All Districts’ Agreement that would eventually lead to an all Districts’ Committee.
Hampshire Regional District interim Superintendent Michael Sullivan stated back in the winter that the goal of the All Districts’ Committee is to improve the efficiency of how each of the five school committees work together while also having written policies in place for the districts to follow.
The objective of the May 26 meeting was to present the initial proposed document provided from months of deliberations and meetings amongst a working group that was developed by Sullivan back in January. Included in that working group was Angela Thompson from Chesterfield and Goshen, Ryan Schiff from Williamsburg, Scott Johndrow from Westhampton, Jon Lumbra from William Norris School Committee, and Carole Bergeron from the Hampshire Regional School Committee.
There was no vote on the document; rather, Sullivan wanted the proposed agreement to “inform” the upcoming individual committee meetings in June.
“It’s definitely not a consensus opinion that everything in here is agreed to by that working group,” said Sullivan, with regard to the document.
According to Sullivan, there are three “buckets” of work that the districts are trying to accomplish with an All Districts’ Committee. The first goal is to provide a structure to help resolve anything that needs to be worked through in the five different districts.
The second goal is to finalize the structure of the All Districts’ Committee and how it will work, along with personnel details and how the committee would plan on working with the superintendent. The final goal is to figure out the issue of shared costs, and how those would be distributed amongst the five committees.
“The proposal is for a 10-member committee and it will have two members from each of the individual school committees,” said Sullivan, with regard to the committee structure. One member will be the chair from each school committee, while the other member will be chosen amongst each school committee.
Kimberly Roche, an attorney at Dupere Law Offices in Springfield who worked on the document, stated that for the All Districts’ Committee to have any kind of ability to do any of the things outlined in the proposed agreement, each individual school committee has to vote to provide them with certain authority.
The proposed agreement includes 10 different sections. The first one explains who will serve on the All Districts’ Committee while the second contains specific information on how All Districts’ Committee meetings would be conducted. The meetings will need to follow the same norms as other public meetings throughout the district.
The third section contains information on officers of the All Districts’ Committee, and how elections and terms of office are determined. The fourth section includes the selection and hiring of a superintendent, while the fifth section involves retention, discipline, and due process of the superintendent. Under this section, the decision to renew or not renew the superintendent’s contract must be approved by at least three of the five member school committees.
The sixth section includes other personnel duties of the All Districts’ Committee, while the seventh section explains budget duties. The last three sections include other actions, a periodic review to see how the final agreement is working each year, and duration. The duration section allows the individual committees to suggest amendments based on the periodic review. A committee who wants to pull out of this full document must give one year’s notice.
“There are lots of perspectives to be shared,” said Sullivan.
One of the more contested sections of the proposed All districts’ Agreement involved the section on budget duties. The proposal at the moment states that the approval of central office costs, which are around a $1 million a year, will be by the All Districts’ Committee.
“The intention of this stems from a recognition that central office costs don’t really get scrutiny through our traditional budget process too much,” said Sullivan. “The intention is when the budget process begins, the first budget that gets rolled out is the central office budget.”
According to Roche, the most recent document allows individual committees to see the budget first before anything is approved. The All Districts’ Committee would then hold a meeting to discuss the central office budget. Two-thirds of All Districts’ members must approve the central office budget for it to pass.
When a central office is approved, 5 percent of central office costs would be split equally amongst the committees who are a part of the agreement, while 95 percent of the central office costs will be divided according to the proportional share of each school’s pupil enrollment, as of the proceeding Oct. 1, to the total pupil enrollment of all members’ schools. This would go into effect for Fiscal Year 2023. In Fiscal Year 2024, 10 percent would be divided amongst the committees.
The apportionment of costs for central office funds will never exceed 10 percent, according to the proposed document.
Trish Colson-Montgomery, a school committee member from Chesterfield, was curious about the percentages the working group came up with.
“You’re taking part of the budget, and you’re not doing the same way as the rest of the budget,” said Colson-Montgomery. “I don’t know why our town would want to go along with this. It makes us pay more.”
According to Sullivan, a partial reason for the percentages are because the general costs for central office are not in relation to enrollment. The 10 percent was a “give-and-take” amongst the working group as something that seemed manageable and doable. The working group also did not want to use weighed voting like other communities, where one committee carries more voting weight than the other.
The agreement as stands will be revised and discussed in upcoming committee meetings.